Welcome to the second installment of everything you need to know about SRECs. Last week we discussed the basics of SRECs – what they are, how you get them, and how they can affect your return on investment and years to pay off your solar system. If you didn’t have a chance to catch that blog click here.

We think that it may be easier to understand how SRECs contribute to your solar system by using some real numbers. So this week, we’ll be looking at an actual Rayah Solar customer, and how SRECs changed their bottom line.

Chris: “You know. Same ol’, same ol’. Kids just finished up with school, busy with work. And oh yeah, we own a power plant now.”

Bob: “A power plant?”

Chris: “Yeah, we just put solar panels on our house.”

Bob: “So how does that work, you get paid for any excess solar you don’t use?”

Chris: “Nope, we get paid for all the power we produce?”

Bob: “So does the electric company pay you for the extra power.”

Chris: “No, it doesn’t work like that. You see, the State of Massachusetts doesn’t have enough power in the grid, so for every kWh of power our solar panels produce, we get paid. Not just the extra. Think of it like this, whether we use all the power or send it all back into the grid, we are still offsetting the burden of the utility company by producing that power. Does that make sense?